Marines turn the tide in the ‘Fallujah of Afghanistan’

3rd Battalion, 5th Marines battle for Sangin

Cpl. Jason Gaal, who was promoted to squad leader after another Marine he admired died, keeps a watch on his squad as he leads them on an overnight combat patrol in Afghanistan in March, 2011.
— Nelvin C. Cepeda

Cpl. Jason Gaal, who was promoted to squad leader after another Marine he admired died, keeps a watch on his squad as he leads them on an overnight combat patrol in Afghanistan in March, 2011.
— Nelvin C. Cepeda

In October, international air forces dropped more weapons on Afghanistan than in any other month since at least 2007. Most of the Hellfire missiles, 500-pound bombs and Excalibur artillery rounds, among other ordnance, supported the Marines in Sangin, where the ferocious fight continued for months.

At first the insurgents organized complex ambushes and fought toe to toe with the Marines from elaborate defenses, including perches in trees and firing ports gouged into mud walls. Later they relied increasingly on indirect attacks, including homemade bombs, assassinations and beatings to intimidate “collaborators.”

On several occasions, Marine positions were close to being overrun. At a patrol base protecting a power station, the small unit first assigned there made a warning system out of a string of soup cans. Insurgents threw death threats for their translator over the patrol base wall at night tied to corn stalks.

The mass casualties continued, but the Marines kept pushing out of their patrol bases, deep into Taliban territory.

The toll

Lt. Will Donnelly, a popular 27-year-old platoon commander known for his willingness to drive inebriated Marines home at all hours of the night, had finally convinced his longtime girlfriend to start a family. They married in the forest of Yosemite Park two weeks before he deployed to Sangin. He was shot to death on Thanksgiving Day, and his men fought back to base with his body, firing rifles and throwing grenades.

Lance Cpl. Brandon Pearson, 21, and Lance Cpl. Matthew Broehm, 22, were murdered by a turncoat Afghan soldier who gunned them down on their patrol base while they were standing post. The Afghan man drank tea and watched music videos with the Marines before the attack as if nothing was amiss. He fled that night under cover of insurgent gunfire. When the Marines later realized it had been an inside job, their blood curdled in loathing and mistrust.

Lt. Robert Kelly, another popular platoon commander who made a point of leading from the front, was killed by an insurgent bomb buried in the bank of a canal. Many of the men he served with had no idea that the 29-year-old officer, who had previously served in the enlisted ranks, was the son of a three-star Marine Corps general.

Lance Cpl. Brandon Long, whose legs were blown off, among other grave injuries, felt that he died during the bomb strike. “I was walking to the light and I heard a voice tell me it’s not your time,’” he wrote in a letter to his rifle company.

“Which way do I go?” he asked.

“The way that you came,” the voice responded. Two days later his daughter was born. Wanting to be a father to her brought him back to life, he said.

Gaal, 22, who was promoted to squad leader in January after another Marine he admired died, said “there is really no way to prepare yourself for the first time that you see somebody’s legs get blown off, or you see one of your friends get killed.